With his mentor’s blessing and an arsenal of experience from a variety of world-class kitchens under his belt, Miyawaki was ready to place his own fingerprint on the culinary landscape. “He is still my mentor,” Miyawaki says of Yoshida. “His wife designs all our flowers. They are really supportive.” Miyawaki visited between 20 and 30 potential locations for his new restaurant. “They were all either overpriced, or in areas where not much was happening,” he recalls. “And then I found this space on Craigslist.” His initial impression inspired him to place an offer right away. “Other buyers offered higher sums of money,” he explains. “But the owner really liked us, so we got it.” With fate on his side, Miyawaki also found two partners to help bring his dream to fruition—one of whom is the only other person he has met who actually shares his name, as well as his philosophy on life. Shuya Iida designs one-of-a-kind pieces of furniture that exemplify the notion of quality over quantity, so the design of the new restaurant allows it to double as a showroom for Iida’s work, which is constructed in Red Hook. “Our wives really get along, too,” says Miyawaki, confirming the serendipitous friendship. Miyawaki and his wife have made much of the restaurant’s earthenware by hand, from the ceramic tea mugs to the giant ramen bowls—all of which bear an etching of the restaurant’s logo on the underside. “The swirling lines symbolize the connections between everything in life, but they also look a lot like noodles,” says the chef. “So we call it Shuya Life Design Lab.” Resonating the notion of providing a service others do not offer, Miyawaki recognized a need to develop a new kind of ramen broth. He uses noodles made by the popular Sun Ramen company in New Jersey, but has focused his creativity on developing a soup base with as much umami as the current trend of tonkatsu (pork broth), yet one that demands no MSG to balance out the soup’s richness. Having worked for several years mastering tonkatsu, Miyawaki had also noticed the toll it had taken on his body. “I feel guilty serving something to others I don’t even want to finish myself,” he explains. “It’s too fatty and uses MSG to boost the other flavors, which is okay once in a while—but it should never be part of a daily diet.” Miyawaki’s broth uses chicken, bonito, anchovies, mackerel, kelp, shitake mushrooms and a myriad of vegetables, all of which simmer on low heat for about 7 hours. “Tonkatsu demands a lot of reducing,” he says, “but mine requires a lot of simmering to bring out the umami.” Cafe de Ramen Story & Images By Bradley Hawks Chef Shuya Miyawaki Pork Bun Vegetable Ramen MARCH 2016 I BOROMAG.COM I 35
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